Is the "Cuties" case a fault of Netflix's marketing?

One of the last titles in the Netflix catalogue is a French film, winner of the Sundance Film Festival's directorial award, named Cuties, with the original title being Mignonnes. The film premiered on Netflix on September 9th and, despite much positive reviews, was surrounded by a furious controversy over the strategy that Netflix used to market it. The film is about an 11-year-old French girl, who has emigrated from Senegal, who joins a dance troupe going against the values of her Muslim family. The themes of the film concern the emporwent and the discovery of self, as well as painting a picture of the cultural discord between first and second generation immigrants against the background of the Parisian banlieue. So far, nothing too scandalous. Except that Netflix, in promoting it on its social media, decided to show the protagonists in provocative poses on the poster (changing the original one, which was much more innocent) and giving the film an ambiguous and suggestive synopsis that makes it seem more provocative than it actually is:

«Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions».

Original poster of 'Mignonnes' vs. Netflix poster

The Internet tribunal, with its usual brilliance, took little to make itself heard, branding the film as pro-pedophilia and invoking the cancellation of Netflix. The fuss raised by the issue, though unmotivated given the nature of the film, starts from correct premises: it is not in fact the film itself that sexualizes its underage protagonists, but it was the marketing department of Netflix that wanted to sell it as a provocative film. In favor of the film, which many Netflix users have lashed out against, even Tessa Thompson, who was present at the premiere of the film at the last Sundance Film Festival, spoke of the film in a tweet:

«Cuties is a beautiful film. It gutted me at @sundancefest.  It introduces a fresh voice at the helm. [Maïmouna Doucouré, the director] is a French Senegalese Black woman mining her experiences. The film comments on the hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls. Disappointed to see the current discourse».

After this tweet, Thompson followed up with a follow-up in which she blamed (indirectly) Netflix's marketing for stirring up the controversy and saying he understood why the audience had stayed on. The fact that Netflix has marketed a film that criticizes the hyper-sexualization of younger girls by sexualizing its young protagonists actually has a certain tragic irony. All the criticisms rained down on the release, therefore, are criticisms of those who have not seen the film – it would be enough to look at it to understand what it is about, also considering how not only is the film directed by a woman (significant fact since she comments on the way young women are treated by today's society) but that same woman won the director's award at one of the most important film festivals on the international circuit and now received threats of death as well as endless verbal attacks directed only for the bad decision of a marketing team on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The movie's director, Maïmouna Doucouré

The movie's director, Maïmouna Doucouré

The movie's director, Maïmouna Doucouré

The movie's director, Maïmouna Doucouré

The movie's director, Maïmouna Doucouré

The problem of the sexualization of minors in film and TV has existed for decades, as Francesco Abazia well documented in his article on Millie Bobby Brown published in Rolling Stones. It is, however, hard to understand why a film like Cuties has to suffer so many stone throws when the Polish film 365 Days, which openly glamorizes sexual abuse (not to mention kidnapping), was among the most viewed in Netflix's Top 10 last summer both in Italy and in the rest of the world. It is also striking that the cancel culture promptly decreed the boycott of Cuties when, on a popular app like TikTok, the hyper-sexualization of minors of both sexes is a phenomenon that happens daily, so much so that The Sun called the app "a magnet for paedophiles". The Telegraph, moreover, last July revealed in a report how paedophiles caught texting underage users are only banned from the app for just a week - virtually rendering any security measures ineffective.

As usual the Internet court issued its ruling hastily and superficially – but unlike many other controversies, this was conducted with the right spirit. The people of Twitter and Instagram do well to wage war against the phenomenon of the hyper-sexualization of minors – they should only pick their own battles more carefully.